pearl of the stars
by shannaros
Summary: Come down and visit me this once.


**disclaimer:disclaimed**

**n1:First ShikaIno. Dedicated to all who voted for it.**

**n2: no story cover yet. Deal with it.**

**title: pearl of the stars.**

**11.3.2012: edited by stover because she's a boss.**

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The streetlights shone over the quiet suburban roads, the light revealing the affluent houses of the area with their ostentatious cars, their pools, their neatly trimmed lawns and various campaign posters that were forever plastered onto the fences and picketed into the ground.

A typical upper middle class neighborhood was what Ino Yamanaka called home.

The light grazed over her, coating her pale skin in the warmth of falsehood-_it wasn't real light. Nothing was real in this world. The money, the friends, the love, not even the light. _She'd made that deduction years ago, the years ago when everything was simple for her. When money was money to her: she didn't know the difference between cash and credit or between ownership and mortgage; back when her best friend was her ultimate bestie, her partner in crime, and the one she'd stash middle school secrets. Not anymore.

Ino snorted slightly, inhaling the bitter scent of her cigarette. Bitter was a good taste on her, so it seemed. Bitterness had changed her; it had begun to _define _her. Ashes flicked from between her fingers onto the crisp grass as she tilted her head up to gaze at the sky.

The glittering stars pressed against the navy fabric of the evening sky, while the clouds –curled and fluffed- dusted the shoulders of the Earth with their soft style. Midnight air made her think of the finest perfume, nothing that any human could make, only something that could be created by the heavens. A smile flickered over her face; only her, only her.

Her platinum blonde hair shifted in the breeze brushing the ground as the pale blue eyes stared upwards, taking in the glittery overhead. Ino had been doing this for years; gazing, trying to grasp the lights above to light her path to happiness, a _laminated escape. _Of course, it hadn't been her idea to sit outside as a prim and extremely fussy youth.

It had been his.

Pineapple head. Lazy ass. Dork. Asshole. Clueless Detective. Moron.

Shikamaru Nara.

The boy next door. The kid with a plan. And the moron who slept through her eighth birthday party.

This had all been his idea.

_He watched the clouds. She watched the stars. _

Another smile crossed her lips as she stared upwards. Perhaps today he'd come and watch with her?

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For once, the stars were out tonight. Sparkling their dull twinkle, the billions of gems littering the skies sat patiently as if they were just waiting to grace the heavens with their beauty. Nothing could match it; not the gardens, the statues, not even the calligraphy scrolls that lined the walls of his home could match their glowing aura.

Nothing except for her.

She was out tonight; she always arrived to sit beneath the sky as it passed overhead.

A small breeze blew forth and he saw a blond lock move to tickle her face, only for her to tuck it behind her ear with a smooth motion. The starlight brightened her skin, turning it into a soft lantern of beauty.

A lantern-yes. Ino radiated; she was nothing but a soft light that was not only beautiful in its own right, but also something that brought out the best, the _beauty _in everything that surrounded her. Her beauty was not only given to her, it was also true.

Ino was not only beauty, she was also _real._

Reality was something lacking in this neighborhood with its over-the-top home cars, and their frivolous designer-clothed, type A personality owners. Reality was lacking in every direction the young Nara could see except for directly beneath his home. That was the only root of humility, of humanity that there was in this place. He could see that from his perch on the roof of his home, and from there he looked. From the grazing stars to her, from her to the stars, from her to the stars before returning to himself, he gave a small smile, acknowledging the similarities with a small bit of reluctance.

_Luminous._

That what Ino was. A bit cliché-yes, perhaps it was, but it was the only way he could clearly relate her to the stars. Oh, she was radiant, she was luminous and she was guiding. Everything that made a star, made up Ino. It carried her, helped nurture her personality, She glistened, illuminated everything around her, exposing them for their beauty and for their reality.

A clanking noise came from beside him.

A rock, no bigger a soda lid, had been thrown at him and as he fingered the rock slowly as another one came flying at him. A quick glance down was all it took before he saw Ino standing there, green painted nails tapping her hips, looking up to him. Her eyebrow was raised and it was nothing more than a signal to show that she was coming up to sit beside him, whether he liked it or not. Shikamaru groaned; she might be a star, but as like all women, she was still highly troublesome to be around. Which is why he liked to watch her from a distance, it made him much more able to deal with the blond.

A small hand clasped on the rafters, pulling the rest of a slim teenaged body up to the surface. Their eyes met for a moment, both acknowledging the other's presence before she sat down, wrapping her arms around her knees. The Nara continued to lay there, hands placed behind his head. Both of them watched the skies, looking as the constellations moved overhead them. Neither spoke; they didn't need to, one glance into her eyes and he knew that she simply enjoyed being here with him. A twitch of his cheeks told her that he was elated- or as elated as he could ever get- by just being with her.

No communication.

They sat like that for hours, the young Nara watching the girl stare to the heavens with a sense of peace. Her simple pleasures, her classic joy, everything that was simply _her _made him grateful that he could even be in her presence. Time passed slowly, moving from the light violet of the evening sky to the navy-grey of midnight, and as the sky shades changed, he gripped her hand lightly, just as an acknowledgement that he was with her. And as he held her pale hand, her lips would curve just a small bit, just as a sign that she would stay with him-so long as he remained real.

He kept her grounded, kept her from floating away into the heavens and joining her fellow stars (much like Sakura; she'd never been keep chained to the Earth and look at her now) in a glitz of hazy memories and friendships.

Ino's smile merely widened a bit more as the midnight sky began to creep away, the light swapping it's darkness for light and she stood, allowing him to give her hand one last squeeze before she leapt off the roof, fading away with the sunrise.

He sighed weakly as she vanished into the morning, sitting up and rubbing the back of his head before climbing off his roof; maybe not tonight, but the next night. Maybe then she'd stay with him from midnight to midnight. Perhaps she wouldn't vanish into the background to be outshone by the sun that was Sakura, or covered by Hinata's cloudy beauty. Though, even if those mere objects managed to dull her radiance with their false hopes of happiness, her radiance could never be dulled in his eyes. Not now, not ever.

She was his everlasting star.


End file.
